Nebula Awards Showcase 2014

by Kij Johnson

  “No.”

  “Animals?”

  “No.”

  “And you could breathe.”

  “It was a little hard.”

  “Like you weren’t getting enough air?”

  “Yeah. But not very bad.” How could that be? There had been air all around him, blowing gently as it never did inside the Shell.

  She guessed the question he wasn’t asking. “You had trouble breathing because the air mix still isn’t right out there. Maybe there’s too much CO2—the destruction of the Earth’s forests would have really screwed up the oxygen-carbon dioxide balance. Maybe too many volcanic particles still, maybe toxins, maybe too much methane. I don’t know. I wasn’t an ecologist. But I think the atmosphere was becoming unbreathable when the Tesslies put us into the Shell. And now you could breathe it.”

  “Does that mean they’ll let us out soon?”

  McAllister raised both hands, let them drop, screwed up her face. Her pregnancy had made her more emotional, which everyone had observed and Pete did not understand. Was that usual? “Pure foolishness, getting herself knocked up at her age,” Darlene had said. “Who does she think she is, Abraham’s Sarah?” Caity bit her lip and looked away every time McAllister waddled into a room. Pete was just glad he wasn’t female.

  McAllister said, “How should I know what the Tesslies will do?”

  Pete burst out, “I’ll kill them if I can!”

  She didn’t answer that; they both knew it was too ridiculous. Instead she said yet again, “And you couldn’t tell if the Tesslie was a living being inside a space suit or a robot.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She smiled. “Neither did I, the one time I saw one.”

  “How did it get here?”

  “I don’t know, dear heart. Until the Grab machinery appeared, I assumed they’d all left Earth after putting us Survivors in the Shell. After all, nobody had seen one for twenty years. But either they returned or else they were observing us all along.”

  Pete had known they watched him! Fucking bastards—

  McAllister said, “Thank you, Pete. You can go now, but later I want to talk to you and Ravi together.”

  “I’ve got Grab duty.”

  “Do you want someone else to take it?”

  “No.” He made himself ask, “Is Ravi all right?”

  “He will be.”

  She looked very tired. Pete said awkwardly, “Are you all right? With . . . everything?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just a little old to be doing this.”

  Well, you didn’t have to! Pete didn’t say it. He blundered out and went to the Grab room.

  Staring at the inert Grab machinery, which might brighten but probably wouldn’t, Pete thought about his own questions. The air outside was breathable. It wasn’t really good, but it was breathable enough. What was “enough?” There were bushes and grasses and—yes, he remembered now, wrenching the picture into his mind as if yanking up a pair of pants—berries. There had been red berries on some of the bushes. Almost he turned back to tell McAllister, but he didn’t want to face her again.

  He had no choice. Somewhere during his Grab duty she came in with Ravi. Immediately Pete wanted to be somewhere else. He got to his feet, scowling to cover his confusion.

  Ravi’s mouth was all swollen. His two top front teeth were broken off into jagged stumps. Pete had a moment of panic—how would Ravi eat? Well, he still had all his other teeth. . . . But his good looks were badly marred. Even without all the puffy swelling, Ravi was never again going to look like the handsome princes in the fairy-tale book.

  McAllister said, “Both of you men were at fault in this fight, but—” For a minute Pete didn’t listen, caught by her referring to them as “men.” Had McAllister ever done that before? When he heard her again, it was clear she was blaming him more than Ravi, because “. . . violence. Not only is it never needed to settle disputes, it damages the good of all and sets a terrible example for the children. Pete, you wouldn’t want Tommy or Petra to someday behave as you did today, would you?”

  Pete couldn’t imagine Petra behaving any way at all except smiling or wailing or kicking her fat little legs. Too far in the future. But he saw what McAllister meant, and hung his head.

  She was talking to Ravi now. “What you were doing, looking to start a fight with Pete because you were angry with me, is something all humans have to struggle against all the time. Do you understand, Ravi? Winning that struggle with ourselves will be a huge part of what lets us successfully restart humanity. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” Ravi said. Pete couldn’t tell if Ravi meant it or not. His voice came out mangled through the swollen mouth.

  “You two are brothers,” McAllister said passionately, “and I know that your biological parents, Richard and Emily and Samir, would not have wanted you to act the way you did today. But even more than brothers, you are members of this colony, with a mission that others have already struggled and died for. You must work together no matter what for our survival, or all those other deaths are wasted.”

  Ravi said something. McAllister didn’t understand the garbled words; she leaned forward and said, “What?” Ravi shook his head.

  But Pete had heard. Ravi had said, “Kill Tesslies.” That was what Ravi thought was their “mission.” And Pete did, too! His head snapped up to look at Ravi, who gazed back. Something passed between them, and all Pete’s animosity vanished. They had a joint mission: revenge. That was more important than who had sex with McAllister, who anyway wasn’t looking very attractive with her belly swollen in pregnancy and all those tired lines around her eyes.

  Ravi nodded. They understood each other. McAllister beamed.

  “Good,” she said. “Now shake hands.”

  They did, and Pete squeezed his brother’s hand. They were on the same side again. They would be killers together.

  McAllister said, “I’m so happy.”

  Both of them smiled at her.

  JUNE 2014

  Along the Euphrates river grew a strip of green: trees, grass, flowers. Away from the river the land turned more arid, dotted with scrub grazed on by sheep and goats. Here, not far from where Babylon had once stood, bacteria mutated on the long tap root of a plant.

  2035

  Pete and Ravi were now allies. Together they were going to get revenge for Earth. The first Tesslie they saw—and one had to show up eventually, after all Pete had seen one when he’d gone Outside!—they were going to kill.

  A week after the fight they sat in the clear-walled room, gazing out at the growing grasses in the black rock. “Those are taller than yesterday,” Ravi said.

  “Yeah,” Pete said, although to him the grasses looked exactly the same height. Pete felt obliged to agree with most of what Ravi said because with Ravi’s swollen mouth and broken teeth, Ravi’s words came out a little garbled. On the other hand, he still had his greater height and bigger muscles, which saved Pete from feeling as bad as he would otherwise. The fight had merely evened things up, he felt, the way Darlene “evened up” blankets when she folded them. The same for both sides. Still, Pete sometimes wished that he and Ravi had had the same father, not the same mother. Ravi’s build came from his father Samir, whom Pete could just remember, unlike both of his own parents.

  “When we find a Tesslie,” Ravi mumbled—it was always when, not if—“we should have a plan. I’ll grab it from behind and you—”

  “Wait a minute,” Pete said. “Is the Tesslie an alien inside a bucket-case or a robot?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes! If it’s a robot, then you hold it and I’ll find the battery case, open it, and pull out the batteries.”

  “Good, good,” Ravi said. “If it’s an alien inside a bucket case, then I’ll hold it tight, you find the place where the bucket-case opens and unbutton or unzip or pry it apart or whatever. Then we can drag the bastard out and hit it with something.”

  “With what?” Pete said.

/>   Ravi considered. “We should have a weapon all ready. Hidden, but someplace where we can get at it quick when we need them. I know! Those metal-toed boots from that Grab!”

  Pete nodded enthusiastically. The boots were never worn; who wanted all that weight? In the Shell everyone went barefoot. Pete had never seen the point of them. But as a weapon . . .

  Ravi said, “We can kick the Tesslie with those boots and stomp on it until it’s all bloody!”

  Pete frowned. The vivid picture created by Ravi’s words didn’t look as appealing as before Ravi described it. Ravi, however, went on and on, spouting things they could do to the Tesslie.

  Partly to stop him, partly because the thought had been growing in him for some time, Pete said, “Ravi, I have another idea.”

  “What?”

  “I think it would help us if we understood more about how Tesslie machinery works. In case, you know, the Tesslies are machinery. We should pick one piece of it and take it apart, examine it real good, then put it back together before McAllister even knows we did it.”

  Ravi’s mouth fell open, fully exposing his broken teeth. “Take it apart?”

  “Yes. For information about the Tesslies.”

  “What if . . . what if we can’t get the machinery back together again?”

  “We’ll be careful, go slow, look at each piece in great detail.” They were words Jenna had used about McAllister’s lesson in taking apart and cleaning McAllister’s precious microscope. Pete wasn’t allowed near the microscope, not since that business with the shit bucket and the broken glass slide.

  Ravi said, “Well, if you’re sure . . .”

  “I am,” said Pete, who wasn’t. But all at once the project seemed the most fascinating thing he’d ever done. Find out more about the Tesslies, the better to defeat them! He was like the Little Tailor in the fairy-tale book, using his brain to triumph over evil giants.

  “What machinery do we take apart?”

  “Well,” Pete said, thinking it out as he spoke, “there are only five Tesslie machines in the Shell. The Grab platform—”

  “We can’t risk that,” Ravi said.

  “—and the funeral slot and the fertilizer machine and the main waterfall and the disinfectant waterfall. I think the funeral slot.”

  “No, the fertilizer machine! Then if we can’t get it back together, we won’t have to do shit-bucket duty anymore!”

  “And the shit will just pile up inside the Shell,” Pete said. Sometimes Ravi didn’t think things through. “The funeral slot is better. Nobody else is sick enough to die. Anyway, I don’t think it will be as hard as the other machines. When I was inside the slot, I could see some pipes or something overhead before it got completely dark.”

  “Pete, did you really go—look at that!”

  Pete’s head snapped around. Outside the Shell, something streaked past, too fast for him to see. “What was it? What was it?”

  “I don’t know? Maybe . . . a cat!”

  “There are no cats not in houses or stores,” Pete said, with an authority he didn’t feel. He’d never seen a cat except in the books. Why did Ravi and not him get to see the not-cat?

  “Something like a cat, then! I don’t know! But it was alive!”

  They both pressed their faces to the clear part of the Shell, but the thing didn’t reappear. Finally Pete said sulkily, “Yes, I went Outside—I told you! So let’s start on that funeral slot. You go get the flashlight and some rope and . . . and a bucket. A big one.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Ravi obeyed him, which made Pete feel a little better. Next time, he would see the not-cat.

  In the funeral room, Pete worked slowly. It was a pleasure to not have to hurry, hurry, hurry like on a Grab. He put the bucket close to the slot, the rope in his hand, the flashlight, usually stored in the children’s room for an emergency that had never come, in his teeth. Then he had to take it out again to explain to Ravi what was going to happen.

  “You press the button to open the slot, and I’ll go in. Then you jam the bucket in the slot so it can’t close up again. I’ll study the machinery above my head in the slot, and if I see something we want for a closer look, I’ll tie the rope around it and use that to yank it out.”

  “Why do you get to go? I want to go, too! The slot is big enough for both of us if we squeeze.”

  It was, although just barely. Although Pete didn’t like the idea of being jammed that close to Ravi.

  Ravi added, “It’s only fair that I get to go in the slot, too. You already had a turn! You went all the way Outside!”

  “I thought you didn’t even believe me about that! And stop whining!”

  “I’m not whining!”

  Glaring at each other, they got into position. Ravi pressed the button. Pete scooted in. Ravi jammed the bucket into the opening and then crawled past it so that he and Pete lay side by side on their backs. The flashlight was necessary because their bodies blocked nearly all the light coming from the funeral room. Pete swept the beam over the ceiling a foot above them.

  The Tesslie machinery wasn’t pipes after all, as he had originally thought. It was hard to say what it was. Rounded bumps, irregular indentations, two protrusions shaped vaguely like small bowls. These were easiest to tackle. Pete looped the rope around one. “I’m going to pull on this, just a little bit.”

  Ravi said, “I want to go Outside.”

  “Ravi! That’s not what we’re doing! Besides, I promised McAllister I wouldn’t do that again.”

  “I didn’t promise her that. And you had a turn Outside so it’s only fair that I do. How do I get the other door to open?”

  “Ravi, no, it won’t open until you—”

  Ravi kicked away the bucket.

  Pete tried to hit him but there was no room to swing his fist. Pete took a huge gulp of air, knowing what would come next: the air whooshing out of the slot, the outer door sliding open to push him and Ravi out on top of Xiaobo’s rotting body. . . . Let Ravi get his own air!

  Nothing happened.

  The boys lay in the glow from the flashlight. The air did not leave the chamber; Pete could hear Ravi’s breathing. Finally Ravi said in a small voice, “When does it open?”

  “It isn’t going to, you fucker! The Tesslies must have changed the machine! We’re trapped!” All at once Pete, who had never minded small spaces before (but when had he ever been in one this small?) felt his heart speed up. Sweat sprang onto his forehead, his palms. Frantically he jostled Ravi, trying to get more space, get more air, get out. . . .

  “Ow!” Ravi said. “Stop it! Hey, everybody in the Shell, we’re trapped inside the funeral slot! Terrell! Tommy! Caity! Hey!”

  Pete joined him in screaming. He yelled until his throat hurt. How thick was that slot wall? What if no one ever came?

  After what seemed days, weeks, Pete heard a voice on the other side of the wall: “Lord preserve us—ghosts!”

  “It’s Darlene,” Ravi whispered hoarsely.

  Darlene began to howl one of her songs. “Save us from ghosts and demons that . . .”

  “Darlene! It’s not ghosts or demons, it’s Pete and Ravi! We’re trapped in here! Let us out!”

  The howling stopped. Darlene said, “Pete?”

  “Yes! Press the funeral button!”

  Silence. Then Darlene’s voice again but closer, as if she now squatted close to the low slot. “You want to come out?”

  “Yes!” Of course they wanted to come out—why did it have to be crazy Darlene that found them?

  She said, “I’ll let you out after you repent of your sins. You, Pete—you say you’re a sinner for sassing me and for disobedience and for setting yourself above your elders!”

  Pete’s teeth came together so fast and hard that he bit his lip. Ravi snapped, “Do it! Or she’ll never let us out!”

  He could wait for someone else, anyone else. But now that escape was at hand, the thought of waiting even one unnecessary min
ute longer in this place was intolerable. Pete snarled, “All right! I repent of my sins!”

  “Name them!” Darlene said.

  “I repent of sassing you and disobedience and setting myself up above my elders!”

  “Now you, Ravi. You repent of fornication with McAllister, who is another generation, and of sassing me and disobedience.”

  Ravi yelled, “I repent! Open the fucking slot!”

  “That ain’t true repentance, but I’ll take it. Now both of you sing with me a cleansing hymn of—”

  “What is going on here?”

  McAllister’s voice. Pete’s heart leapt and then sank, a reversal so quick it left him gasping. Ravi yelled, “McAllister, Pete and I are in here! Let us out!”

  The slot slid upwards. Pete and Ravi scuttled out on their backs. Pete felt dizzy. Blood streamed down his chin from his bitten lip. McAllister stared down at the flashlight in his hand, the rope trailing out behind him, the bucket on the floor. From this angle, her belly jutted out like a shelf. Pete had never seen that look on McAllister’s face. He felt four years old again, except that no adult but Darlene ever glared like that at a four-year-old.

  Ravi, the great lover, hung his head. In a tiny voice he said, “I saw a cat outside, McAllister, running past the Shell. Really. I did.”

  JUNE 2014

  Geoffrey Fanshaw did not get the notoriety he’d hoped for.

  Julie finished the analysis he wanted and sent it to him. She expected to hear back from him, but—nothing. On reflection, she decided she’d been dumb to expect acknowledgement. She had served her purpose to Fanshaw and he had discarded her; that was what narcissists did. She was left with his check and her own fears.

  At night she dreamed of plants dying, all over the world.

  Two more jobs came her way, and she took them both. Around the consulting work she fit a separate, obsessive routine: Wake at 5:00 a.m. Coffee, banishing the lingering night dreams with wake-up caffeine. Care for Alicia. Bundle the baby into her pram and, before the streets of D.C. got too hot, make the long walk to World Wide News to buy newspapers. The Washington Post, the New York Times: the online versions left too much out. Also a host of small-town papers. The rest of the day she stayed inside, bathed in the air conditioning that divided her and Alicia from the steaming D.C. summer. She worked and then she read, barely glancing at the wide variety of usual disasters available in the world: